Shadowguard

"This is ridiculous," Everna griped.

Winter had arrived and stayed with a vengeance. Snow drifted from the heavens for the fifth day in a row, burying the town ever deeper beneath its icy coat. Icicles dangled precariously above the heads of oblivious townsfolk as they worked to clear the snow from in front of their doors. Guards armed with shovels and horses equipped with field plows worked tirelessly to free the streets while trade wagons and carts crept further into the town proper.

"You'd think we were in the mountains with how much snow's fallen," Lyra agreed. She tugged her scarf — a scrap of a thing made from a strip of a blanket rather than knitting — further up her face and burrowed into it, her cheeks red from the cold. "I couldn't even open my door this morning. I had to climb out the window."

As the town lay in the southernmost corner of both the kingdom and the region, where the weather remained mild throughout the year, Pendel rarely saw a true winter. It wasn't until Everna spent her first winter in Inversa that she experienced the spectacle of waking up to the sight of snow covering every rooftop. Yet, even Inversa saw only a few inches, just enough to cover the city in a thin sheeting.

When she pulled her curtains open that morning, she'd found the most bizarre sight before her. A storm had blown through that evening, but she hadn't paid it any mind. Pendel frequently saw storms, which brought with them an abundance of rain and thunder, well into the early months of winter. This one had come with considerable wind and several feet of snow.

"I did too," Everna shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets, the fur lining soft and warm against her numbed fingers. "Mom had me outside at the crack of dawn dumping hot water on the street because she's 'too old to be climbing through windows.’"

Afterwards, she found herself on the roof with a shovel, buried to her knees, as she tried to clear the icicles from the eaves. It had been a mistake, as not five minutes later, she wound up in the street, floundering beneath half a foot of powdery snow while her mother laughed herself to tears in the doorway. Her father, who pulled her free, was not as amused.

Her parents were still arguing when she left.

Embarrassing as it was, she took solace in knowing that she was not alone. The baker's son fell from his roof not long after. The Guards pulled a pair of boys from a snowbank after their makeshift sled shot off another roof and into the street. A few blocks over, someone had fallen through theirs.

She didn't doubt that, come noon, the Guard would have notices advising against such endeavors posted across the town. Whether people listened remained to be seen.

"The boys are happy, if nothing else," Lyra said. "My mother, not so much. Holt and Egan made a snowman and used her good apron to dress it."

Lyra's brothers weren't the only ones. Shoddy snow sculptures dotted the alleyways between the buildings — hats, gloves, and dresses used to decorate them. Snow faeries covered the parts of the streets not yet cleared. The older children had claimed the snow banks, obscene messages and images carved into the snow. There was even a large phallic sculpture in the middle of the street, at which a group of young boys pointed and laughed as they ran past.

Lyra made a noise of vague disgust at the back of her throat. "I cannot believe the guards haven't taken that down yet."

"They'd just make another one," Everna said with a shrug. "You know how boys are. Personally, I think it's hilarious."

"It's anything but."

"What? You don't think a snow cock is funny?"

"Unlike you, I don't have the maturity of a schoolboy," Lyra clipped. "It shouldn't be there. It's just wrong."

"You're right," Everna said, a cheeky grin splitting her lips. "In this cold, it should be much smaller."

"Your sense of humor is atrocious."

"I'm making one in front of your house tonight."

"Don't you dare."

Nearer to the center of the town, the streets were busier than ever. On the south side of the main square, preparations for the Harvest Festival had begun. The skeleton frame of a stage stood in the designated area, a swarm of carpenters and woodworkers laboring to put the floor in place. On either side, a smaller group focused on constructing the massive tables that would hold the feast. Unlike previous years, however, the atmosphere was much more subdued; rather than bristling anticipation, a heavy sort of reluctance clung to the air.

"I'm surprised there's a festival this year," Everna said. "I don't think the townspeople are in the mood for celebrating."

Lyra gave the stage a sideways glance, her lips pressed into a firm line. "I heard there was talk of canceling it, but Pala insisted they hold it. She thinks the town could use the distraction more than ever, and rumor has it there are plans to use the festival to honor the mayor. They buried him three days after you left."

It would be the best way to send him off, Everna thought. Mayor Ashburn loved the Harvest Festival more than any other seasonal celebration. For Pendel, which thrived on agriculture, it was the most important day of the year. The hunters and farmers presented offerings to the nature deities; if those offerings were suitable enough, the appeased gods imparted their wisdom onto them.

Nothing would make Mayor Ashburn happier than to see his hometown thrive.

"She's not wrong," Everna said a few moments later. "The world doesn't stop on account of one person. There would come a day when Mayor Ashburn left us. It's just unfortunate it came so soon, and in such a horrible way."

"I suppose you're right. I just... Sometimes I can't believe something like that would happen," Lyra muttered. She paused, then swallowed as it if were the most difficult thing she'd ever done. "I still see the blood sometimes."

Everna had always thought she had a strong stomach. Her brother was reckless to a fault, and she spent much of her childhood fetching their parents whenever his dauntless stupidity resulted in one gruesome injury or another. She'd seen him impale his own foot with a pitchfork. He once fell out of a tree and broke his leg so horribly that the bones stuck out in three different places. He'd even fallen into a bonfire and charred the skin of his leg.

Their parents kept healing potions on hand because of him.

None of that, however, prepared her for seeing a man's skull split like a walnut and the contents spilled across the floor, or witnessing what happened to a body when it fell from a great height. The first time she'd seen a decapitation, she'd nearly screamed. She didn't dare think of the mutilation case she once handled under the tutelage of an Inquisitor. It had been worse than they expected, and even the Inquisitor had to excuse themselves for a few moments.

Mayor Ashburn's death was exceptionally tame by comparison, but to Lyra, who'd never witnessed violence of that nature, it was probably a horrifying experience. Everna would be more concerned if she hadn't reacted. Still, she was handling it much better than some of her classmates had. Three of them dropped the course after their first encounter with death.

"I don't know how you do it. How did you... You didn't even react."

"I did," Everna admitted. "I just didn't let it show."

Dealing with death required both nerves and a creative mind. It was a mental game, one of distraction and redirection. Her instructors introduced them to such scenes as quickly as possible, as desensitization came with exposure. They encouraged them to find other explanations for what they saw: to see blood as paint or the bodies as the mannequins used in the earliest days of their studies.

Repress the body's natural response, adopt a neutral stance, and focus on nothing but the evidence; it was second nature to her now.

"Maybe that's why Windmore seemed so convinced it was you," Lyra proposed. "You were so calm. It was almost... creepy."

Everna scoffed. She could've been the one vomiting out the window and Windmore would twist it into an admission of guilt. He'd wanted to arrest her that night and nothing but a confession from the culprit would've stopped him. That may not have been enough, either. He'd have arrested her as an accessory to murder or assumed they were covering for her.

You're jumping to biased conclusions, she reminded herself.

She drew in a deep breath, feeling the cold air flood into her lungs, and released it in a cloud of white. Her emotions and personal views were interfering with her rationale, and that would get her nowhere with this case. She might not like Captain Windmore, but without evidence to support her claims, suspicions, they were nothing more than slanted speculation. He may have been all too happy to slap her in chains, but given the circumstances, he wasn't wrong to do so.

He had, if even in the barest sense, done his job and she couldn't fault him for that.

"It was the sword," she said at length. "Which reminds me, I need to pick it up from Banor. Care to join me?"

"Another excuse to avoid my insignificant other? I will gladly go with you."

"Why are you still with him if you don't like him?"

Lyra sighed. "I don't have the heart to tell my mother things have changed. She was so happy when she found out we were together and was absolutely beside herself when he proposed."

"Don't tell me you intend to marry Gyles for your mother's sake."

"Not everyone—"

A loud crack from above stopped her short.

Without thinking, Everna seized Lyra by the arm and hauled her towards the middle of the street as a massive sheet of snow and ice on the roof beside them broke loose. It spilled over the eaves, dragging a large chunk of wood and several loosened shingles. The onslaught missed them by mere inches, and for the third time that morning, Everna found herself buried to her shins in snow.

"Gods be, this is insane," Lyra huffed as she smoothed her dress, glaring at the roof.

"Come on," Everna said, ushering her down the street. "The sooner we're off the streets, the better. The snow's tried to crush me to death twice, and it's not even noon."